What's better than cheddar? Cheddar and apples

Coming this fall.................apples for all

Why are Stayman Winesaps all around in the markets at this time of year?  Are they now shipping apples from Chile as well?  If they are, at least a well known New York apple from another country still goes well with cheddar cheese. 

I can’t remember if it was last year or the summer before that we saw a pod of dolphins swimming and jumping and churning the water right in front of us.  The water glistened on their bodies.  Then all of sudden we noticed that there were fish jumping straight out of the water too.  When we understood what was going on it just about was ending.  But clearly the dolphins were heading out to NYC for the day; decided to stop and gather a meal, and then continue on their journey. We saw them head back south later in the day.  But they just headed straight home.  Just about took the same exact route and distance from the beach as the last time.  Maybe they caught a good current. You have to wonder if their time back was an hour shorter than their time out to the city like the Vegas trip.  Ater a full day they just cruised along, easily slipping through the water going and coming back.  I wish my day’s energy were as even from stem to stern as theirs.  I just can’t get myself to eat fish.  That’s probably the answer but I can’t do it. 

I can manage some extra sharp cheddar with a really good apple though.  What a beautiful combination. You have to wonder who first discovered these great synergistic foods. Lettuce and tomato on toast with mayo. Was it the early Deliman?  Barely mentioned by anthropologists; hardly known through the fossil record. I mean, how well do you think toast lasts through the millenia anyway?  But Deliman certainly discovered the egg cream after a long day of making Woolly Mammouth Reubens for the whole tribe.  Apples and cheddar are a more modern invention. Lighter, less tools, no need for swirling deli counter chairs.  Portable and satisfying, the cheddar apple combination no doubt a product of a nomadic civilization.   Here’s hoping everyone’s journey, including the bay dolphins, be smooth and healthy.

What's wild on Kindle? The wild blue - a journey to resilience

The wild blue                                    by freda karpf     http://amzn.to/15QB7rO

 

 

The difficult terrain that is grief and the road back that is resilience - this is what the wild blues is about.  Healing from the loss of a loved one’s dying, or from the loss of your home, or a job you identified with or reeling from the loss of a landscape that was changed by a storm or from being forced to relocate – the central idea behind all of these big changes one can experience is loss. … there is a common road many of us will go down before we feel like we’re back in the swing of things again. The trick I’d like to share in the wild blue is really simple, life never left us; nature has always been a part of us, all of us really, and our losses are intricately bound up with all the life on this planet.

Self-Publish Your Book!

Self-Publish Your Book!

A writer’s workshop with Merry Brennan

From Manuscript through Marketing:

a six-session series

Tuesdays from 7-9 pm, beginning Tuesday, Aug. 13

@ Belmar Arts Council (

608 River Road, Belmar, NJ . www.BelmarArts.org )

$25/session or all six for $125 with BAC membership

Whether your story is destined for the best-seller list or your family reunion,

it’s never been easier to publish your own electronic or print book.

This six-session workshop will give you an overview of your options,

as well as specific steps, resources and costs for preparing, publishing, and

promoting your book. Choose one or more of the following sessions.

1. 1. Make Your Manuscript Shine – Aug. 13

Feel the sizzle? It’s the pop in your prose, the drama

in your dialogue, the sting in your surprise ending.

Learn sure-fire techniques to take your writing to the

next level. For beginners and seasoned scribes

alike, find out how to improve the pull of your

opening lines, the impact of your endings, and wow

with the words in between.

2. The Scoop on Self-Publishing – Aug. 20

The popularity and convenience of self-publishing

has also borne confusion and competition. This

workshop provides a broad look at the growing

number of indie and DIY options, as well as general

information about how to prepare, publish, and

market your book. (These topics are covered indepth

in related workshops.)

3. Create a Kick-Ass Cover – Aug. 27

You know what they say about a picture’s worth, so

you want to create or commission a great design to

get reader’s attention. But a cover is more than just

a graphic image: you also need to craft an intriguing

blurb for the back and include other required details,

including ISBN numbers. This session will offer

ideas, information, and resources for an inviting

book cover that works for you and your readers.

4. Format Your Manuscript – Sept. 3

Even the best stories are left unread if margins are

screwy, lines have gaps, or it just looks

unprofessional. Learn the importance of proper

formatting in e-books and print books, including title

pages, chapter heads, and page numbering. For

print books we’ll also look at choices you have with

the size of your book (known as “trim”), typefaces,

paper, photos/graphics and more.

5. You’re Ready to Self-Publish – Sept. 10

Your manuscript is polished, your cover is amazing,

you have your ISBN number and you’re ready to

publish your book. Now what? This session will

cover step-by-step instructions for e-books and print

books using popular vendors like CreateSpace and

KDP Publishing (Amazon) as examples. We’ll also

talk about strategies for pricing your book.

6. Promoting Your New Book – Sept. 17

After the thrill ebbs from seeing your baby on

Amazon and sending copies to friends and family,

you’ll want to expand your market. Learn basic PR

and marketing tips you can use before and after

publishing to increase sales. We’ll cover the pros,

cons, and how-to’s of media kits, author talks, niche

marketing, book signings, social media and more.

Merry Brennan is an award-winning journalist, communications consultant, adjunct writing

professor and author of the self-published biographical novel,

Peace Pilgrim: walking her talk

against hate

. She’s finishing a teen/’tween realistic fiction, Mystery Scars. The Jersey Shore

resident is mom to three terrific children and an old lab, Scout, who breaks into the refrigerator

when no one’s looking. Connect with her at

www.merrymorphosis.com, where she blogs about

writing, and living in peace. Or email

merrymom@mac.com.

FOR WORKSHOP INFORMATION or REGISTRATION: visit
www.BelmarArts.org (732-749-3360)

Quitting nicotine and hiring yourself for the feature role in your life

With humor as a backdrop, the “memoir” style narrative will feel familiar to those that have read contemporary writers in search of self and soul. What we leave behind in the dark of our minds and histories can boomerang back through our psyches. All you need is a catalyst, or a home made bomb. That’s what happened when the narrator quit smoking and the persona Nic was born.

That was the start of these conversations, a serio-comic and spirited journey that has Nic chasing the narrator throughout the tale. Once she turns the chase around a full passion for life and creative expression blossoms. The desire that pulls the narrator forward through the land of withdrawal addressed her entire being. She discovered a strong identification with Odysseus, the original journey man. And she also learns to appreciate the role that his wife Penelope had in his world.

Forced on a journey through the virtual and subjective realms that she had only given marginal validity in the past, this move also put Nic on notice. She was no longer fighting him head on, but using all the tricks in the book to counter his wicked, insidious ways. This included comic monologues and giving voice to the “Goddamned right I am” woman who had something to say about the entire mythical history of the western world.


Check out the Kindle version of Conversations with Nic at

http://amzn.to/14jUNUs

Bridges and paradox

     It seems like a paradox exists between hope and change.  Actually, it appears more like a rope bridge between the two - linked by cross pieces and knotted ropes holding it all together.  The connection strong but over a tenuous territory. Maybe it’s about hope and chance and luck has everything to do with it.  This is what an old friend told me once.  She is my mentor too.  So I listen. 
     I imagine walking across this bridge as I would an Adirondack path.  Danger in each vibration and all that holds me to the world is a tenuous connection between rope and rock. Now I’m thinking, “What is a paradox after all?  A dock on either side of the abyss.”  Nothing in the middle making sense but when you come from one side to the other, how right, if unconsidered before.  What is a paradox?  A new partner, an unexpected guest, a friend's revelation, a new friend after a personal holocaust when a moment before, it would seem, nothing would grow, as if salt on the ground at Nineveh? For all I know Nineveh is now an orchard where oranges bright as dice pulse pectin through their thick skin.  Oranges turn their colors in the night.  Imagine the desert illuminated by these juicy globes.  Who would have thought such sweet light would cast shadows on these wretched plains?
      In the crevasse between left brain and right you’ll find the jump, the spilt milk of synapses, the positive charge of hope connecting through the gray matter, the knotted rope bridges within our skulls, to the other side, where the negatively charged chance waits; pausing at the edge, a hopeful caesura, which is the poet's way of saying, "Stop - but don't, stop." 
     When Lynn was little, she was certain, as she came upon an abandoned lot surrounded by a metal fence in the Bronx, that she had discovered the Iron Curtain.  She also moved towards the wall when in bed to leave room for God, who was probably very tired and needed a place to rest his head.  And, she once told me about the time she ran home from school to check the oven to make sure God wasn't dead because she was told that day that God was everywhere. Decades later, her stories give me hope in innocence; faith in what freedom from prejudice can bring - compassion, caring, simple worries about mighty beings.  Hope often seems tenuous when we ache for the tangible. The other night I felt my mother's hands in mine.  It was completely unexpected.

Begin the begin

It’s still spring and still difficult to know it as such. The good thing about today though is that it’s that kind of rainy day not yet raining day and Sunday to boot that allows one the luxury to stay inside and enjoy the comfort that these days can bring.  I am listening to my own advice. 

Someone wrote that they’re not enjoying their birthdays as they did when they were young.  In truth, I really don’t remember too many celebrations of my birthday. I don’t think it was a focus for attention when I was growing up. But as I’ve gotten older I have loved these days because I use them to allow myself the meandering kind of soul filled time that is unstructured.  It feels like the same ideas as the labyrinth walk that is designed to lead you to a more inward space.  But there is no deliberate design that I follow. It is a time when I am safe and have the good fortune to be able to do the spiritual schmooze.

My birthday is also meant to be a spiritual schmooze day. But I seem to have the expectation and desire to have some intent then to have it be more like a labyrinth.  My hope is that I will get to the essence of what I want to focus on in the coming year. I want to feel closer to that purpose which seems crowded out of my life because of the tyranny that the week can hold over me. 

Yet once my birthday begins I noticed that I am always open to being moved off that course as well.  It is setting aside the time that seems essential.  Cole Porter’s song ‘Begin the beguine’ comes to mind only because from being a kid on I hear the title as ‘Begin the begin’, only with an accent.  I find it silly to begin the begin because it’s punny and I’m sure that was deliberate. By the way,  the “beguine” is a dance from Martinique.  I’m also sure most people get it wrong and think it’s begin the begin. So I’m not alone in that. That’s okay. When it comes to soul filled days, whether rainy days, birthdays or New Year’s Day for some, it is about begin the begin.  It’s about renewal and creating a fresh focus. I hope you have already started and that it feels like you did just begin. 

Backyard yin, backyard yang

Every day I walk around the property I'm moved by something I see or experience. I want to share it with my partner. But something happens between the time I get from the outside to the inside that just pushes whatever it was right out of my head.  Now I'm usually walking around the front or back yard because I have Molly with me. She's on a leash that allows her to run.  It took a week of using the new leash before she figured out she could run away from me, at least for a short distance, but now that she knows she goes and frolics and cuts corners all the time.  This brings fresh views of the property that I might not normally have in my ambling, knees sore and aching making my way around here.  Usually there's a delight in store for me because of her running or short of that, a feeling of being replenished just from being outside with her.

We're growing moss here. The slow growth of moss keeps me at the weeds because they're faster and I'm rooting for the moss to keep on keeping on. It's soft to walk on and feels as if you're sinking into the earth. I don't think Molly notices this or even cares for the moss but when she whips me past the garage and the gap in the fence I'm onto moss land and it's really sweet.  I know I'm low maintenance and I know most people hear about or read about or even live simply - Molly and I get right down to that on these walks. I get the sweet green enveloping me and chasing away work and my to do lists and Molly gets to roll in the dirt patches.  That's her thing. Frankly, I can't figure that one out because I thought cats liked to be clean.

Last week we had more morning glories growing in the front and on the back trellis than we had all summer. The woman at the local produce stand told me that growing just stops in the high heat.  We had enough of that this summer to ruin a lot of crops and put a halt to a lot of growing. Now, even though we're into October the petunias in the back have returned in two beds. Trust me when I tell you these were emergency beds made on the run when I ran out of space on the front porch and the window boxes put a halt to any more plants.  Quicks settlements of petunias were made wherever I saw a depression in the soil near the back trellis. The trellis cuts our yard in half but pretty much at an angle that gives us a yin/yang division.  The garage, painted milk chocolate, captures beautiful shadows cast by the trellis and trees. The trellis nearly reaches the garage on one side and on the other it is shy of the oak tree in front of the compost bins. That's the set up. Molly has learned that I can't fly under the trellis the way she can and obliges my inability by careening around the garage corner when she wants to get on the other side of the yin/yang.

I was wondering which side of the back yard is yin and which is yang. But it seems like that might change from the beginning of the day toward the end. Right now the far side of the trellis hardly has any dappled light and the close side by the screen house does. I'm in the screen house right now which makes me sitting on the yang side. Molly is here with me and wants to get out. She's yearning for the yin because everything that's calling to her is on the other side of the yard. That's where the squirrels are right now, rumbling about, scrambling and digging at the ground burying acorns.  From where I'm at I can see the petunia that's white with a little purple between the petals. All summer these flowers were purple whirly whigs with just a little white between the petals. It's fall now and everything is changing.  Molly's coat is thickening.  I hope I can remember how this wind feels right now. It's so beautiful. The wooden wind chimes agree. The jays are calling from one yard to the next; I think there's actually three yards involved. It feels a little like summer just now. Summer away from the beach or just home after swimming in the ocean. Molly is settling into a nap even though it's late afternoon.  What a good idea.